Shall I be too exigent if I enquire what precautions the observer adopted to recognize the owner of the Mouse on his return, when he reappears, as we are told, with four assistants?
What sign denotes that one of the five who was able, in so rational a manner, to appeal for help?
Can one even be sure that the one to disappear returns and forms one of the band?
There is nothing to indicate it; and this was the essential point which a sterling observer was bound not to neglect.

Were they not rather five chance Necrophori who, guided by the smell, without any previous understanding, hastened to the abandoned Mouse to exploit her on their own account?
I incline to this opinion, the most likely of all in the absence of exact information.
Probability becomes certainty if we submit the case to the verification of experiment.

The test with the brick already gives us some information.

For six hours my three specimens exhausted themselves in efforts before they got to the length of removing their booty and placing it on practicable soil.

In this long and heavy task helpful neighbours would have been anything but unwelcome.